Almost Heaven
October 02, 2003 09:47 PM | General
October 2, 2003
 |
|
| West Virginia senior wide receiver Travis Garvin ponders what could have been after Thursday night's 22-20 loss at No. 2 Miami. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
West Virginia was just 11 seconds away from pulling off one of the biggest upsets in school history.
Miami freshman Jon Peattie made five field goals including the game-winner with 11 seconds left to help Miami avoid an upset loss to unranked West Virginia Thursday night in the Orange Bowl.
"It's unfortuante that we made a few costly errors early in the game and some key penalties late in the game, and they made a few field goals," said West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez.
Miami (5-0) was a prohibitive favorite going into the game, but struggled to run the football once running back Frank Gore left the game with a knee injury early in the first half. The Hurricanes finished the game with just 88 yards on 28 carries. And that forced Brock Berlin to throw 54 times, completing 37 for 352 yards and a touchdown.
The Mountaineers got on the scoreboard first when a Rasheed Marshall-to-Kay-Jay Harris 83-yard pass play set up a Quincy Wilson two-yard touchdown run.
“All week we ran that play,” said Harris. “I was messing it up all week during practice but thankfully we got it right tonight.”
Miami responded with 10-straight second-quarter points. Quarterback Brock Berlin lofted a 23-yard pass that Jason Geathers out-jumped the West Virginia secondary to catch for a touchdown with 9:54 left in the second quarter, and the Hurricanes tacked on three more points four minutes later when Peattie kicked a 22-yard field goal.
West Virginia responded with a pretty seven-play drive that was once again keyed by a long Marshall pass. This time the junior found Chris Henry streaking down the far sideline for 28 yards to put the football at the Miami 44. A Wilson 25-yard run and a 20-yard run from Harris put the football at the Miami five. WVU tried three unsuccessful cracks at the end zone before finally settling for a Brad Cooper 25-yard field goal.
With less than two minutes remaining in the half, Miami drove the football all the way down to the West Virginia four when Berlin made his second mistake of the game. He tried to loft a fade pass in the corner of the end zone to tight end Kellen Winslow, but West Virginia cornerback Adam Jones managed to wrestle the football away from him for a drive-ending interception. Berlin’s first pass was picked off by Leandre Washington.
After Jones’ interception, West Virginia ran out the clock to take a 10-all tie into the locker room.
After exchanging possessions to start the second half, Miami drove the ball down field behind some crisp passing from Berlin. The Florida transfer went five of six passing on the drive including three completions to Winslow.
The Hurricanes reached the West Virginia 14 before the drive stalled and Miami was once again forced to settle for a Peattie field goal. This time Peattie hit from 32 yards out.
Peattie’s third field goal expanded Miami’s lead to 16-10. The Hurricanes got great field position following a Todd James punt, taking over at its own 48.
Two Berlin passes helped move the ball to the West Virginia 26 before the Mountaineer defense stiffened near the red zone.
A fourth Peattie field goal tacked on three more for the Hurricanes to begin the fourth quarter. Once again Miami moved the football primarily through the air before bogging down in the red zone. West Virginia had a chance to come up with a big turnover when Berlin misread a pattern intended for Winslow, but Adam Jones couldn’t dig the football out of the turf. That led to a Peattie 31-yard field goal to make it 19-10, Miami.
"At the start of the second half offensively we really hit a wall and just didn't do anything and really kept the defense out there a long time," said Rodriguez. "We needed to make some drives and at least get some first downs and we didn't do that."
Trailing by nine, West Virginia got good field position on the ensuing kickoff when Colson returned the football 34 yards to the West Virginia 35. On second and six, Marshall threw downfield into double coverage and Henry managed to pull the football down between two Miami defenders for a 38-yard gain to the Miami 24 yard line.
Two Wilson runs netted four yards and an incomplete Marshall pass forced Cooper to kick a 36-yard field goal, which he converted.
With Miami trying to run out the clock, West Virginia linebacker Grant Wiley stripped the football from backup running back Jarrett Payton and Adam Jones recovered the football at the Miami 48.
After a short Wilson run, Marshall put West Virginia into business with a 15-yard option keeper to the Miami 30. A three-yard loss and an incompletion left WVU with a third and 13 at the Miami 33.
Marshall lobbed a screen pass out in the left flat to Wilson, who eluded several tacklers and ran over Brandon Meriweather at the 15 on the way to an amazing 33-yard touchdown. Cooper’s extra point gave WVU a 20-19 lead with 1:54 left in the game.
"It was a great effort. We called a little screen pass and they had the play defended pretty well but Quincy broke some tackles down field," said Rodriguez. "When it was 19-10 and people were leaving the stands I thought it's still too early to leave because it was just a two possession game."
But Miami responded under pressure, converting a crucial fourth and 13 at its own 24 to keep the drive alive. On that play, Berlin lofted a pass down the middle that Winslow went up and grabbed for 19 yards to move the ball to the Miami 43.
"Winslow made a great play that's why he's going to be playing on Sundays," said Rodriguez.
Three more Berlin completions placed the ball to the West Virginia 33, and a pass interference call on West Virginia’s Brian King eventually moved the ball to the six.
On third down, Peattie made the game-winning field goal 11 seconds left on the clock.
Winslow finished the game catching 10 passes for 104 yards.
Marshall led West Virginia with 232 all-purpose yards, completing nine of 19 passes for 200 yards and running eight times for 34 yards. Henry caught four passes for 75 yards and Wilson ran 20 times for 99 yards and caught three passes for 43 yards.
West Virginia finished the game with 370 yards of total offense, a remarkable improvement over West Virginia’s 156-yard performance at Maryland on Sept. 20.
"It hurts right now because our young men gave great effort and a lot of people were down on us and down on our young men, questioning a lot of things we were doing, but our guys never quit believing in themselves and believing in what we're doing and unfortunately it's still another loss and we've got to try and get better for the next one," said Rodriguez.
The loss drops West Virginia’s record to 1-4 with Rutgers coming up in Morgantown on Saturday, Oct. 11.
Scoring Summary
WV – Wilson 2 run (Cooper kick)
UM – Geathers 22 pass from Berlin (Peattie kick)
UM – Peattie 22 FG
WV – Cooper 25 FG
UM – Peattie 32 FG
UM – Peattie 42 FG
UM – Peattie 31 FG
WV – Cooper 36 FG
WV – Wilson 33 pass from Marshall (Cooper kick)
UM – Peattie 23 FG
Individual Statistics
RUSHING-West Virginia, Wilson 20-99, Marshall 9-32, Harris 5-28, Colson 1-7, Garvin 1-4, team 1-0. Miami, Payton 21-69, Gore 4-15, Maxey 1-3, Moss 2-1.
PASSING-West Virginia, Marshall 9-19-1-200. Miami, Berlin 37-54-2-352.
RECEIVING-West Virginia, Henry 4-75, Wilson 3-43, Harris 1-84, Alston 1-(minus 2). Miami, Winslow 10-104, Payton 10-71, Moore 7-81, Beard 3-24, Parrish 2-26, Hill 2-1, Geathers 1-22, Everett 1-20, Cobia 1-3.
Attendance: 54,621
